


We’re setting fire to our insides for fun

by ohanotherday



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5760409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohanotherday/pseuds/ohanotherday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As an omega in a highly religious family, Aaron was taught to not indulge in hedonistic behaviors. As an omega who grew up with alphas as his main friends, he learned how to hide his indiscretions well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We’re setting fire to our insides for fun

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song [“Daughter” by Youth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEpMj-tqixs)

After a childhood of being shipped off from one relative to another, Aaron Burr learned that the easiest way to get love and attention was to behave and have a good demeanor and hide your secrets well. His guardians all had a heavy hand when it came to discipline. He wasn’t the most well behaved child and it took awhile to realize that he’d have to either learn how to behave better or hide his secrets better.

He does both. He talks less and smiles more.

As an omega, he learned that when one was approached by a particularly enthusiastic alpha, placating them until he could get away was his best bet. Hamilton had been an anomaly. He acted nervous and confident all at once, stuttering out words but talking on an endless stream. Aaron was half sure Hamilton was an omega as well, but he still went down his usual placating route. Offered to buy him a drink, gave him some constructive criticism disguised as friendly advice, and then left confused.

Being courted didn’t generally end with an alpha deriding an omega’s character. That was simply unheard of in a courting situation. Aaron forgot about the situation and went on with his life.

\---

As an omega in a highly religious family, Aaron was taught to not indulge in hedonistic behaviors. As an omega who grew up with alphas as his main friends, he learned how to hide his indiscretions well.

\---

During the war, Aaron comes down with heat stroke. He almost laughs when the doctor realizes Aaron is also getting a heat. Aaron should’ve known. Summer and Winter have always been his heat seasons.

The look on their faces is priceless when he tells them to find him an alpha. The grandson of a fire and brimstone preacher telling them to go find him someone to fuck him? Ha! But Aaron is a scholar, and he knows just how helpful an alpha would be during a heat.

His vision is swimming when doctors ask who to get. Did he have anyone in mind? He doesn’t respond, just hears them say they would have to get this cleared with the commanding officer first.

\---

He wakes up to cold hands pressing against his cheek, and, “Aaron. Aaron, Aaron. Aaron Burr, sir, you must wake up.”

When he blinks himself awake, Hamilton is there and looking ever so hopeful. He is always so sure of himself, and here he is asking if he can help Aaron, whatever he needs, and Aaron agrees.

He was too out of it to properly remember the logistics. Sometimes Hamilton was there fucking Aaron relentlessly, and other times he was gone. The nurses tell him the heat lasted four days. Aaron doesn’t see Hamilton again for another month.

Slowly Aaron’s health declines. The war takes its toll on Aaron’s body.

Washington doesn’t care what kind of men join up to his army, and Aaron has always been of the firm belief that omegas could do just as much as alphas and betas, but his heats are tougher to handle when he isn’t in relative comfort.

There is no limit of alphas willing to help an omega in heat—alphas eager to pretend the war isn’t going on outside their tent—but he can’t in good conscience take more men away from the war.

And then his heats stop altogether. He always drinks medicinal tea after heats, does his best to put any pregnancies off, but he still panics. The nurses and doctors provide insight. The fatigue and occasional famine are wreaking havoc on his body, and his heats won’t come back until there is more stability.

Aaron doesn’t quite mind the change.

\---

Aaron meets Theodosia on a ship. She is an omega too, and has such a similar disposition as himself. The only pity is her husband. 

Theodosia and Aaron correspond frequently, ignoring the way their friends and family gossip about them. They aren’t doing anything wrong per se. Expecting an omega to have to go through a heat alone was simply cruel. They help each other in more ways than one.

\---

Aaron never would’ve predicted how annoying Hamilton would be after the war. It is one thing to have to share the same city, but to have to share the same building is completely ridiculous.

Having Hamilton working next door to him drives him up a wall. Hamilton works every day and night, debates and debates, ignores everyone’s advice but his own, and steadily climbs. It shakes Aaron’s confidence.

Aaron likes to think he works just as well, and some nights he stays on until the bitter end. But then there is Theodosia waiting for him at home and that is reason enough to go home. When she goes away for trips to visit her family in England, Aaron doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

\---

It is during a particularly hot summer when a murder trial comes in. Aaron has to prove himself once again, or at least embarrass Hamilton enough to shut him up. Hamilton has always loved speaking over him, and Aaron can’t have that. 

The heat gets into the stuffy building, and soon Aaron is pulling off his cravat and tugging open the collar of his shirt. It is only midday, so either the terrible weather would continue on into the night, or it would break. His door is shut to keep Hamilton out, but it also keeps out any hope of a breeze.

He digs into a stash of food, and when he has eaten some, he goes back to work. The food doesn’t taste like much, not something Aaron can convince himself to continue consuming, and it only leaves him more agitated. It isn’t until he leans back in his chair that he notices there is slick sticking his pants to his skin. All at once the realization that he has terribly mismanaged his time comes crashing down

Aaron rests his arms on his desk and lays his head down on top of them. This whole thing is a mess. At least the trial is looking very positive for their client.

There is knocking on the door. Aaron tilts his head so he can see the door and stares and stares but doesn’t dare move. Eventually he hears Hamilton start talking. He rambles, knowing Aaron must be in the room, and though Aaron doesn’t answer, Hamilton begins to share his thoughts. 

Aaron leans back in his chair and starts unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. He pulls his shirt out until it is hanging loose. His pants are damp. There is simply so much slick now. He unbuttons his breeches. His cock is hard, and it doesn’t take much effort to sink his fingers into the slick.

Hamilton is still talking.

The door is locked, but Hamilton does observe some common niceties. He wouldn’t try to pick at it, but he would talk and knock and talk and knock until he wore the other person down.

When Aaron slips his fingers out, there is so much slick on his fingers. He wipes it on his shirt. He lets out a loud sigh of irritation and stands up. He buttons his breeches back up for formality’s sake. On the other side Hamilton laughs, as if he knew he was right to assume Aaron was inside the office.

Hamilton’s laugh is short lived. As soon as Aaron unlocks and opens the door, Hamilton’s laugh skitters to a halt.  He looks Aaron up and down.

“To be sure, Burr, is that truly you?”

Aaron scowls but that only makes Hamilton laugh once again.

Hamilton leans off to the side of the door. “Well, my dear Burr, what do we have here?” Truly it’s the pot calling the kettle black. For all his bravado, Hamilton looks like he’s in just as bad shape, and he doesn’t even have the excuse of a heat to blame it on. Aaron isn’t even sure if Hamilton actually has been leaving the office all that much. He rarely does when his family is out of town

Aaron clenches his hands. “I’m in heat, obviously.”

“Oh,” Hamilton says slyly. “And you would like me to help? How can I be of assistance?” He smirks, and it makes Aaron want to shove him.

Aaron scowls. Now was not the time to be coy with him.

“Well,” Aaron began, “Either shut the door and fuck me, or go out and find an alpha with a large cock and send them my way.”

Hamilton stands up straighter, gaze darting to both sides of the hallway like they’ve been caught. He frowns as he glances back at Aaron. “I’m married.”

“Okay,” Aaron nods. He was expecting that. Hamilton likes being a flirt, but Aaron isn’t so naïve to think Hamilton would abandon Eliza and his family for him. He leans closer. “That doesn’t stop you from completing my second request.”

It was meant to be a jab, a way to make Hamilton hurry up and find someone to actually do the job, but Hamilton takes it as a challenge. Hamilton eyes him for a moment. “What about your wife?”

“Away visiting her family.”

“And she wouldn’t be hurt by this?” Hamilton shakes his head. He seems to be having a hard time wrapping his head around this moral dilemma.

“I’m not asking you to commit a murder,” Aaron hisses. Hamilton’s eyes widen. Aaron is losing his control. He closes his eyes for a moment and takes in a deep breath. He smoothes down the front of his shirt. It’s open, but it’s part habit. When he opens his eyes, Hamilton is staring at the sight of the damp fabric of his shirt where Aaron wiped off the slick.

“My wife is in England visiting her family,” Aaron continues. He blinks a few times in rapid succession, trying and failing to find the right words. “And though we are bound to each other, we are of the mind of forgiving each other for these transgressions.” The heat is getting to him. He has only shared three facts, but it feels like he is rambling. He likes concise, efficient language, but instead a tumble of words have come out.

Hamilton hasn’t moved. Aaron stands unimpressed, waiting to make sure Hamilton carries out one of his orders.

Aaron lets out a sigh of relief when Hamilton pushes past him and shuts the door behind him.

Hamilton helps him take off his breeches, and then Aaron is stripped down to his socks and bent over the table. He keeps imagining his stockings will slip down and down past his knees, surely with the way he is being fucked, but he doesn’t care.

Hamilton has only bothered with removing his own coat. Hamilton will hate himself for it, Aaron thinks. Oh how Hamilton loves dressing elegantly, and his suit will surely be a mess once this is done.

Papers fall off the desk when Hamilton shoves forward and starts to knot him. It knocks the wind out of Aaron.

He can’t really remember what happened during that first heat together during the war. At times Aaron would be more conscious, look up at Hamilton on top of him, say a few words, and Hamilton would break out in a smile.

After Hamilton’s knot goes down and he pulls out, Aaron turns around and looks at him. Aaron leans against the desk for support. There is slick and semen running down Aaron’s thigh, but he ignores it.

Aaron never realized he was shorter than Hamilton. It couldn’t be by more than an inch, but it is true. When he realizes it, he might’ve glared. He tries standing up straighter.

He can’t be sure because then Hamilton is kissing him. Kissing and removing his own clothes and guiding Aaron down onto the floor. It is hardwood, and Hamilton scrambles for Aaron’s shirt to lay across the floor before laying Aaron down and climbing on top of him. He likes how Hamilton kisses—feels as if he can’t quite get enough of it. Aaron drags his hands through Hamilton’s hair, yanks and pulls and smiles when Hamilton glares at him. 

\---

It isn’t until after the third time Hamilton knots him that Aaron remembers to ask about Eliza.

Aaron is still on the floor, Hamilton resting behind him, Hamilton’s knot tying them together. He wants to fall asleep, but the floor offers no comfort. Hamilton’s arm serves as a pillow, but it is bony. Aaron lets out a yawn. “And where is your wife?”

Hamilton shifts closer. “Visiting her father.”

“And she doesn’t mind this?”

“I don’t…she doesn’t…” Hamilton’s words drifts off. “I think she will understand.”

Aaron raises his eyebrows. If Hamilton knew the face Aaron was making, he would throw a tantrum. As it is, Aaron feels like he has never heard Hamilton sound so unsure.

“She will understand,” Aaron repeats slowly. “Well that doesn’t seem disastrous in the least.”

“Well your wife is fine with your arrangement,” Hamilton grouses.

“That’s because we’re _both_ omegas,” Aaron replies. “Aaron Burr always discusses matters like these beforehand with his wife.”

“You talk about yourself in the third person?” Hamilton scoffs. “My Eliza will be able to handle this.”

Hamilton’s knot starts to go down, and Aaron pulls away. He sits up with a sigh. “All the same, it would be wise not to go sharing these exploits with anyone. I have no interest of being the source of gossip.”

Hamilton is looking at him, head tilted. “Well weren’t you and your wife shacking up before she even got divorced?”

“We didn’t spread those rumors,” Aaron snipes. “We ignored them and they died down.”

Hamilton shrugs a shoulder. “Technically the rumors haven’t all died down. They’re still going, but if it’ll ease your mind to pretend, than far be it for me to constantly remind you.”

Aaron stares at the floor and wonders how rude it would be if he punched Hamilton in the face. “Nobody needs to know about this.” He turns his face toward Hamilton, trying to look as stern as possible.

Hamilton’s eyes narrow. He gives a decisive nod. “Nobody needs to know.”

“Also, I’ll need to go home eventually. I do need food, unlike you, and clothes.” He glances about at the state of his clothes. “And tea.”

“Tea?” Hamilton laughs, the tense mood lifted. “Is that a thing? Do you go about and have a good cup of tea after fucking?”

“Well I don’t plan on giving Theodosia the burden of raising someone else’s children.” As soon as Aaron says it, he sees Hamilton’s hackles rise.

“My son is clever. He is very smart.”

Aaron picks up his shirt. It is dirty, but the coat will cover the mess. “Can he even crawl yet? Wasn’t he born less than a year ago?”

“That’s beside the point.” Hamilton waves a hand. “He has potential. I already know he’ll go down in history.”

“Good for you, Hamilton. But I still would never want you to claim any of my children as yours.” He stands up and pulls on his breeches. “I would rather them be bastards.”

Aaron isn’t sure why, but the news is a shock to Hamilton, makes him mad and annoyed. He practically bristles, and Aaron knows Hamilton wants to argue the topic, but that would give the situation more weight. Flings aren’t supposed to be messy, and children would bring nothing but complications.  

Hamilton ends up getting them a carriage. They go to Hamilton’s house. It is in Harlem and there are almost no servants. It is such an odd thing. Hamilton does feed him, but he is muttering and then also discussing the constitution and Aaron really only wants one thing. He tunes out Hamilton’s words.

When Hamilton does take him to a bedroom and starts fucking him again, Aaron can see the fire behind Hamilton’s eyes. He is still mad, of course, and it is Aaron’s doing, which doesn’t surprise him whatsoever.

He always knows how to upset Hamilton.

\---

When Aaron does find himself pregnant—because of course the damn tea wouldn’t work with Hamilton—he doesn’t tell anyone. He tells Theodosia when she arrives a month later.

It isn’t until the later months that he starts to show, and by then he is in upper state New York with Theodosia who has become pregnant with Aaron’s child. She is a little shocked when Aaron tells her the truth of his pregnancy, but she is ready to pretend his and Hamilton’s child are her own.

She gets ill during her own pregnancy, and she is happy when a little boy is placed into her arms. Aaron is less thrilled. He doesn’t care about names, lets Theodosia name the boy Jonathan. She tells him his melancholy is what happens sometimes after pregnancies, but Aaron doesn’t like these feelings.

When Theodosia delivers their little girl, their daughter gives him something to look forward to in this world. 

\---

They return home and continue their lives and Aaron talks about his children but does not listen to the speculation. Twins aren’t completely uncommon, and they pretend their children were born only minutes apart instead of weeks. And Alexander is far too busy to notice. He is busy founding a bank and on his second child with Eliza.

When he really considers it, his son is precious. Both little Theo and Jonathan are. As his children get older, they occasionally accompany him to different events. There are plays and events and despite it being very difficult to have small children around, Theo and Jonathan always beg and promise to behave. Aaron was raised in a household where children were meant to be seen and not heard, and while he tries to be stern with his own children, he finds it hard to deny them anything.

For the most part they keep to their side of the bargain. Both of them are such perfect children. His young Theodosia and Jonathan look close enough to pass as full siblings, and they are as close as any set of twins. They both have Aaron's dark skin and brown eyes and wild curls. He had gotten rid of those curls well before he was thirteen, shaved them off, eager to fit in with his more English classmates. But his wife has plain straight hair, and she thinks the children look cherubic with the way their curls frame their face. Aaron has to agree. 

It is rather an ordeal when they run into the Hamiltons. It happens sometimes, but Aaron prefers to steer his family clear of them.

Alexander is busy trying to wrangle his brood, four of them now, while Eliza smiles and carries the youngest. Aaron almost feels guilty when he introduces his son. Eliza is pleasant. Alexander talks and talks, and it gives Aaron a moment to compare his son with Eliza’s. There isn’t a similar shape, and it seems Eliza and his genes are stronger than Alexander Hamilton’s. The boys’ eyes are similar, and their mouths, but not much more. Everyone talks about how the Hamilton boys have inherited their father’s looks, but it is more Eliza who they truly take after physically.

\---

Jonathan dies when he is seven. Both of his Theos are inconsolable.

\---

Aaron focuses on finding a seat in the Senate. 

\---

Hamilton is constantly busy, and when Aaron became Senator there is plenty of bad blood. Still, Hamilton is there during heats. Aaron eventually finds himself pregnant again, and when he gives birth to a second little boy, both of his Theos are happy. He gives birth to a third boy two years later. 

Aaron teaches his daughter piano, French, Latin, and Greek. He has compiled a sturdy curriculum for her, one that will educate her mind as well as make her a respectable young lady in the social sphere. She dances and sings and learns all the proper etiquette expected of someone of her class. She does so well, but then there are days when the cracks start to show through. She misses her brother so much. Even if it was a lie, Jonathan might as well have been her twin. They did everything together.

Aaron misses the sound of his son’s voice.

He puts together an education fit for his two youngest sons. They’re so young, still babbling and crawling like all toddlers do, but it doesn’t stop Aaron and his wife from planning out their children’s futures. He’ll teach them piano and as many languages that they can handle. He’ll get all the best tutors for them. He’s swimming in debt and barely paying off one loan with another, but he absolutely doesn’t care. Those are his children, and he will do what he must for them.

\---

Neither boy survives childhood. It breaks his wife’s heart. She is already so ill and fragile. Theodosia’s older children don’t visit often, and when there’s no sound of little footsteps or babbling words, there isn’t much to keep her physically present and moving about. She reads and writes essays and minds her time with their daughter, but she is bedridden now with little chance of leaving the house without falling ill.

In her last years, Aaron prioritizes her above all else, even when his heats hit. Having his wife by his side is always better, and letting her know that really she is the only one he would want during a heat is important.

She is an omega. She understands alpha substitutes. She prescribes to the idea that as long as it doesn’t mean anything, it is fine. Aaron loves her more than anyone he has ever met, and he feels like he has committed a terrible sin against her when he dwells on all the times he has let Hamilton knot him.

With three children buried in the ground, it feels like it would mean something to go back to that same alpha who fathered them all, and Aaron can’t do that. 

There is guilt but there is nothing he can do. And then he is always upsetting that alpha politically, so really, why bother with Hamilton when Theodosia could be at his side.

Sometimes all she can do is hush him and cup his face, whisper how much she loves him while Aaron tries to work a wooden phallus into himself. It’s not ideal, her too weak to really move around and maneuver him, but oh how she makes him feel loved.

\---

After eleven years of marriage, all Aaron has left is his daughter. His wife and sons are dead, his wife’s previous children are scattered across the continent.

\---

Hamilton despises him for all Aaron’s political views. Aaron doesn’t care. 

\---

Aaron thinks he hates Hamilton more than he ever has in his entire life. If it weren’t for Hamilton, he wouldn’t have to mourn the deaths of three children. They wouldn’t exist at all, but they would be spared so much pain. He wouldn’t have had to sit and watch as his children tried so very hard to fight against the constant illnesses that plagued the city.

And they tried. Aaron knows because he was there, fretting over them and singing to them and rocking them to no avail. Only his young Theo had managed to make it past one epidemic after another.

He still has letters Jonathan sent to him—poor grammar but perfect penmanship, written in English and French—tucked away in his office desk. He keeps his son’s letters there, hidden and sacred along with his daughter’s. She keeps writing, and Aaron keeps responding. Her stack of letters is far larger than Jonathan’s. It’s a constant reminder of what Aaron has lost.

And then there’s Hamilton, blessed by Eliza with far more children than he knows what to do with, who rarely takes the time to visit his family. Hamilton and Eliza’s children are healthy and Hamilton doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s so busy on building a legacy that he doesn’t stop to see the one he’s built in his own home. 

Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes.

\---

Aaron has always had his daughter’s best interest at heart, but now he focuses on it so much more. He takes pride in her education. He can’t sully her future.

\---

Years pass. His daughter is becoming a fine young lady. She hosts parties. She visits with friends. She has become a beacon of hope in Aaron’s eyes.

\---

Another fever epidemic breaks out. The water is terrible in the city. It always has been, but it’s only been getting worse as the city grows. There are few regulations. The Democratic Republicans select Aaron to help pass a bill, one that will create a water company and put in proper pipes. Even Hamilton supports it, which helps Federalists cross party lines. When Aaron sees Hamilton, he thinks he might see sympathy in his eyes. Aaron’s two youngest died from a similar epidemic that currently plagues their great city. Aaron’s party members use that line to help sway minds. Aaron would prefer to keep that knowledge to his immediate circle, but he can’t help what his party does.

\---

At the last minute the bill is rewritten. It creates a bank for the Democratic Republicans—the Bank of the Manhattan Company. It does not use the hundreds of thousands of dollars it has fundraised for proper water regulation. It lays some groundwork pipes down, but nothing like it originally proposed.

It makes Aaron feel ill, but he doesn’t waver on his party’s stance. He has sealed the deal, and he will continue on.

\---

Aaron compartmentalizes.

\---

He avoids Hamilton, but then Hamilton is most upset at the fact that a bank exists with a higher limit than those used by the Federalists. Aaron can shrug that off.

\---

It takes awhile before a proper safe water system for Manhattan is constructed. Aaron considers sending his daughter away. A malaria epidemic breaks out.

When he asks his daughter if she wants to go away, she shakes her head. It would be safer if she left, but she doesn’t want to leave him.

Each day feels like a countdown to the inevitable, but his daughter remains healthy and strong. She is his rock, his deliverance, his salvation.

\---

A day comes when Aaron receives a letter from Hamilton asking if any of Aaron’s children were his. It comes some weeks after Philip Hamilton has been shot, and Aaron doesn’t have to wonder where this sense of nostalgia is coming from. He doesn’t respond. Let the man who thought he was always the smartest in the room come to his own conclusions. Hamilton knows numbers. It wouldn’t take much to count the time from Aaron’s heats to the supposed dates of the children’s births.

\---

Aaron has always avoided visiting his loved ones’ graves. He feels like he can never escape their clutches. Their ghosts seem to follow him around daily, and walking near the hallowed ground of their graves makes shivers run down his spine.

Theo doesn’t run like he does. She has a strong sense of duty, and she visits. Aaron accompanies her if he has a free moment. She has always had her older siblings in her life, but those weren’t the ones she grew up with. The ones dead in the ground were her playmates.

\---

Aaron schedules out when to expect his heats. His heats are much more contained now. 

When Theo starts getting her own, Aaron arranges for biyearly trips for her to visit her aunt. Aaron doesn’t want to concern himself at all about her heats. He is quite aware that she could do whatever she likes, but he prefers knowing none of her escapades—if there even are any.

His only saving grace is that she doesn’t seem to show any interest in the Hamilton boys.

\---

By chance one of Aaron’s heats is scheduled while Hamilton is in New York, and by chance they’re both attending the same dinner party. Eliza is not in attendance, and Aaron doesn’t have to wonder if Eliza is still hurting from the Reynolds Affair.

Hamilton could’ve always ignored the gossip and pretended it was nothing but rumors, but to go on and explain the affair was ridiculous. When Aaron read about it, for a moment he feared Hamilton would go and shame him too, but luckily Hamilton had been one track minded on this. 

Aaron thinks he might understand Eliza better than he would ever understand Hamilton. She made the right choice. What else is there to do when one’s mate ruins your life?

\---

Aaron’s heat arrives, and there is Hamilton turning up in the middle of the night without even a letter or invitation.

His hair has started turning gray, but he is still handsome.

\---

When Hamilton shows up at Aaron’s door, talking but not really there, too focused on the intangible, Aaron steps aside so Hamilton can come in.

He’s not the same. His self-confidence is shaken. He doesn’t grip Aaron as tightly during sex. He’s almost gentle, as if that is possible for Hamilton. His hands skitter over his skin, caress over his arms and up to his neck to keep Aaron in place while he kisses his neck.

It’s a long three days, and Aaron is sure he has never heard Hamilton speak so few words.

Hamilton holds Aaron at the end of it, but then he sits on the edge of the bed for a moment and then gathers his things. He looks lost. If Aaron was someone else, now would be the time to comfort Hamilton, but that simply isn’t how he was made to be. Hamilton’s eyes are puffy, like he’s been crying. Aaron wonders if Hamilton was crying during sex or throughout the night. He wouldn’t know. He wasn’t paying attention, too involved in his own heat to notice anything happening right in front of his face.

\---

If Aaron had taken the time to speak aloud about Philip’s death, he’s not sure what he would’ve said. He can’t imagine himself giving out proper condolences without sounding insincere. He watched all but one of his children fade away before his very eyes. Hamilton has only seen one of several.

\---

Sometimes Aaron wonders if the melancholia he experienced during his youth is a side effect of a failed heat bond. It makes sense when he thinks about it, and the way Hamilton takes and takes, it makes sense that a bond might have tried to form.

It doesn’t though. It _didn’t_. They run in the same circles and have similar friends but Aaron is more mated to his dearly departed wife than anyone. At least that’s what he tells himself. He repeats it, over and over.

\---

Aaron gets pregnant a fourth time, and this time there is no way to pass off the twin boys he gives birth to as his wife’s. 

\---

Aaron does what he must and hides the pregnancy. He takes up residence in New Jersey and keeps his children there. A scandal like this so close to the 1800 election would be detrimental. By some miracle his secret sons aren’t found out by his opponents and detractors. 

By sheer luck he has managed to time everything right when it comes to the pregnancy. Manages to hire the right people and blackmail the others. Manages to help his daughter find a suitable husband even.

\---

Aaron runs into Hamilton only once after he gives birth to the children, while campaigning. They are amicable for once. They smile and are friendly and even though Aaron is tired as hell, it is nice catching up. That never happens, only when Aaron is so heat drunk he can’t help but wrestle Hamilton down and hold him close while Hamilton takes the opportunity to relay all his thoughts without interruption.

\---

In the end it doesn’t matter that the children aren’t found out prior to the election. Their goddamn alpha of a father detracts him at every chance. 

\---

It is afterward—halfway through his vice presidency—that it comes out that he has two more children. It doesn’t matter. Hamilton has already ruined him politically. His daughter is happily married and considered impressive in her own right.

The existence of his bastard children has nothing on the damage Hamilton has done to his political career.

\---

When the secret of his children does come out, Aaron is bitter. He receives letters from Hamilton questioning it, but Aaron doesn’t respond. To detract on his policies is one thing, but to also do so on his character in such a public forum is quite another. Aaron is quite aware of the number of times he has deceived Hamilton during politics, but if Hamilton truly hated him, he should not have bothered to help him through any single one of his heats. 

\---

Hamilton writes to him, but Aaron would rather jump off a cliff than have Hamilton even consider offering to legitimize the boys. Simply done, Aaron wouldn’t keep up with another omega for attention. Eliza could have the cheating bastard. Aaron knows she has already forgiven him for the Reynolds Affair.

\---

The boys scream all the time. All the time. They look just like Aaron, but they scream and cry worse than any of his other children. They certainly have the strongest of lungs to be able to fill the house with their cries when still so small.

It drains his energy dealing with them and the vice presidency. He avoids coming home. He lets the servants take care of the children and he ends up sleeping in his office.

It is in a fit of anger that Aaron responds to Hamilton’s unanswered letters, and sets to put Hamilton in his place.

\---

It is when Hamilton is bleeding out on a hill in New Jersey that Aaron finds the courage to say it out loud. “They’re yours,” he says. He says it a couple of times, not sure if Hamilton is actually listening. “All the boys actually.”

Some of the men are pushing him away. However, if Hamilton is going to die, at least he could be honest about this one thing.

Hamilton stares back at him, and then frowns. “What?”

“All the boys are yours,” Aaron repeats. He is able to get a little closer and is able to be clearer. “All of my sons,” he says in a lower voice.

Hamilton’s eyes go a little wide when he comprehends, but then Aaron is being pulled aside and Hamilton is getting carried away.

\---

The boys stay with Aaron at first, but then he sends them to his daughter. He doesn’t get run out of New York exactly, but he goes willingly after his various failed schemes. When he travels to Europe, he takes the boys with him. He gets them tutors and he prescribes to an education as dutiful as he did for his daughter.

They advance and climb, and Aaron hopes his name hasn’t tarnished their chances at a good future. He tried his best to leave them a good legacy, but heaven knows they’ll have to do their best to keep afloat. He has got faith in them. His little Theo had shown the same intelligence and resilience. It was only at his request that she come visit him that ever put her in danger. 

\---

He mourns his daughter. He can’t help but feel that her death is entirely his fault.

\---

When Aaron is on his deathbed, he prays that hell or heaven lets him in. Preferably the one where Alexander is in.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Throughout the story I wavered through historical accuracy. Like sometimes I had seven different research tabs for this fic about something as trivial as the number of kids Aaron and Theodosia had, and other times I went, “fuck it, I’m already taking creative liberties with the inclusion of a/b/o.”


End file.
